The clerk looked at Brakthir, who waved a hand in curt permission.
Rowan stepped forward. His heart hammered against his ribs but his voice came out level.
"I understand the Council's decision. The gold is not enough. I'd like to withdraw it and make a different offer."
Nicholas closed the satchel without being asked. The click of the clasp was loud in the chamber.
Silence. The four who had voted against watched him. One looked bored. The others didn't. Nicholas shifted beside him. Withdrawing the gold was not something they'd discussed.
"Goblin silver," Rowan said. "Artifacts made by goblin craftsmen that are currently held by wizarding families who consider them permanent possessions. The goblins have always maintained that such items are loaned, not sold, and that they belong to the craftsmen who made them. Wizardkind has never acknowledged this."
The silence changed texture. What had been dismissive became very, very attentive.
"I am offering to recover and return goblin-wrought silver artifacts from wizarding hands. Ten pieces, verified by the guild as authentic goblin craft, delivered to the Clan Council by the time I complete my education at Hogwarts."
Two of the Council members began speaking at once. The clerk rapped the podium for order. Vorzak had risen from his seat, his careful blankness gone entirely.
"How?" The question came from one of the four who had voted against. A heavyset goblin with deep-set eyes, nearly shaking with fury. "How does a wizard child propose to recover silver that our people have been attempting to reclaim for centuries?"
"That's my problem to solve," Rowan said. "I'll sign a blood-bound contract. If I fail to deliver ten pieces of verified goblin silver by the agreed date, the wards revert to goblin possession and I pay a breach penalty equal to the gold I offered today — one hundred pounds, alchemical purity."
The chamber erupted. Three Council members were shouting. The clerk had abandoned his podium and was arguing with Vorzak, who was ignoring him completely. Brakthir sat still, watching Rowan.
Nicholas leaned close. "You understand what you're promising?"
"Yes."
"You have no idea how to deliver on it."
"I have a place to start looking. Ten pieces in five years is manageable if I'm right about where to find them."
Nicholas said nothing else.
The second vote took twenty minutes of argument to reach. When it came, the heavyset goblin cast his vote against with enough force to make the stone seat vibrate. Two others voted with him. Vorzak, Brakthir, and a third Council member voted in favour.
Deadlocked. Three against, three in favour, with one vote remaining.
Lodgok. He sat at the far end of the arc, the goblin who had voted against the first time. He was lean where the heavyset one was broad, with the sharp features and ink-stained fingers of a merchant rather than a craftsman. He hadn't spoken during either debate.
The chamber held its breath.
"In favour," Lodgok said.
The heavyset goblin turned on him, fury curdling into betrayal.
"You turn against your own blood?" His English was accented but clear, spoken for Rowan's benefit as much as Lodgok's. "Your brother would spit at your feet."
Something flickered across Lodgok's face. Pain, or anger, or both. He met the accusation without flinching.
"My brother and I disagree on many things. I know the value of silver better than anyone in this chamber, and I have watched zealots nurse grievances for decades while our craft sits in wizard manors gathering dust." He looked at the heavyset goblin. "I will take a gamble over a grudge."
"Four to three," the clerk said. "The motion carries."
The objections were immediate and loud. The heavyset goblin and his two allies spoke rapidly in Gobbledegook, and Nicholas's face was impassive, but his translation came in a murmur.
"They're calling it a betrayal. Grothek, the one who spoke, is saying that Ranrok will hear of this and that the crafting guild is lowering itself to deal with wizards on goblin terms. The other two are his allies. Brakthir is reminding them that the vote is binding under clan law."
The blood-bound contract was produced by the clerk. It was written in both English and Gobbledegook on a single sheet of dark parchment that felt warm to the touch. The terms were stark: goblin wards of the highest quality over Number Four Carkitt Market and any future properties Rowan Ashcroft acquired during his lifetime, in exchange for ten verified goblin-wrought silver artifacts, to be delivered before his final year at Hogwarts. Failure to deliver the silver would result in immediate removal of all wards and a breach penalty of one hundred pounds of alchemical gold at Stone-forged purity.
Rowan pricked his thumb with the ceremonial knife the clerk offered. A single drop of blood on the parchment, which the parchment absorbed completely. The ink glowed red for a moment, then settled to black.
Vorzak signed as guild representative. Brakthir signed as witness. Lodgok signed as the casting vote, a requirement that seemed to irritate the opposition immensely.
Grothek rose from his seat and walked out without a word. Two others followed. The door shut behind them with a finality that echoed in the stone chamber.
"Ranrok's faction," Vorzak said to Rowan, speaking English freely now that the formal proceedings were over. "They would refuse to sell a wizard water if he were dying of thirst. The fact that you got the vote at all is remarkable." He paused. "I will supervise the ward construction personally." His eyes glinted. "I have not had a new project in three years. Do not bore me."
They collected their wands at the archway and walked out of Gringotts into the morning sun without speaking. The noise of Diagon Alley swallowed them. Nicholas steered them to a bench near the fountain, far enough from the bank's entrance that no one was paying attention.
Nicholas spoke first. "You said you had a place to start looking."
Rowan glanced around. No one within earshot. "The Room of Requirement at Hogwarts. You know what it is?"
"We've heard rumours," Perenelle said. "A room that becomes what the seeker needs. Most people assume it's a myth."
"It's real. I found it in my first year. There's a configuration called the Room of Lost Things, centuries of objects hidden or abandoned by students and staff. I've been inside it. I've barely scratched the surface of what's there. Pureblood families have sent their children to Hogwarts for a thousand years. Things get left behind, things get hidden, things get confiscated and never returned. If even a handful of those are goblin-wrought, ten pieces is possible."
Nicholas was quiet, turning it over. "It's a gamble."
"Everything today was a gamble. This one has better odds than most."
Perenelle studied him. "You've signed a blood contract with the goblin nation, Rowan. If you fail, you lose the wards and you owe them one hundred pounds of gold you don't have. And the goblins who voted against you will use that failure to prove that wizards can't be trusted. You won't just hurt yourself. You'll set back every goblin who argued in your favour."
"I know."
They sat with that for a moment. The fountain splashed behind them. Shoppers drifted past.
"There's something else," Rowan said. "Not about the goblins." He looked at Perenelle. "Clara. The Healers don't think the tremor will stop. I think I've found something that might help."
Perenelle's expression shifted. "Cruciatus pathway damage is structural. Standard healing magic doesn't reach deep enough."
"I know. But I found a ritual in the Room of Requirement last year. The Ritual of Lunar Clarity. It permanently restructures magical pathways. The manual describes it as enhancing capacity, but the mechanism works on the pathways themselves. If it can restructure healthy pathways, it might rebuild damaged ones."
Nicholas and Perenelle looked at each other. Something passed between them that didn't need words.
"Your reasoning is right," Nicholas said slowly. "Ritual restructuring operates at a level Healing Charms can't touch. We'd need to study the specific procedure, but pathway reconstruction through ritual means is possible." He paused. "You do understand that rituals are classified as dark magic under Ministry law."
It wasn't a question. Rowan looked at him.
"The classification is recent," Perenelle said. "A century old, give or take. Before that, rituals were standard practice for any witch or wizard with the skill to perform them. The old families pushed the ban through the Wizengamot so the knowledge would stay within their bloodlines. Classify it as dark, strip it from the Hogwarts curriculum, and within a generation no one outside their families even knows the practice exists." Her voice was matter-of-fact. "We never agreed with the decision. Neither did most of the Continent. But in Britain, performing a ritual carries the same legal weight as casting an Unforgivable."
"I'm not going to let Clara's hands shake for the rest of her life because the Ministry doesn't like old magic."
"We didn't think you would," Nicholas said. "But you'll need to be very careful about who else you tell."
"The problem is the moonstone," Rowan said. "I need two ounces of ritual-grade. The manual said Mulpepper's Apothecary is one of the only commercial sources, but that most dealers have never stocked it."
"Mulpepper's is the only shop in Britain I'd trust with that claim," Perenelle said. "We've purchased from him before. If anyone in Diagon Alley has ritual-grade specimens, it would be him."
"Then let's find out."
They walked to Mulpepper's. The apothecary occupied a cramped frontage near the Owl Emporium, the air inside thick with dried herbs and something faintly sulphurous. Mulpepper himself was behind the counter, a wiry man with wire spectacles and stained fingers.
Nicholas asked. Mulpepper listened, adjusted his spectacles, and shook his head.
"Moonstone at that purity?" Mulpepper adjusted his spectacles. "I haven't had a specimen like that in seven years. Four ounces, sold it to a collector in Vienna for more than I care to say aloud. The waiting list has eleven names on it. I can add yours, but I won't promise a timeline."
"How long for the last person who waited?"
"He's still waiting. Put his name down in eighty-four."
They left empty-handed. Nicholas offered to write to contacts in France, alchemists who might know of private sources. Perenelle suggested Knockturn Alley, where rare materials occasionally surfaced.
"But if the best apothecary in Britain hasn't seen a specimen in seven years," Nicholas said, "I wouldn't count on either."
Perenelle nodded. "We'll try. But you should think about other options."
Rowan already was. Walking back toward Carkitt Market, his mind had gone to the only place he hadn't looked.
The Forbidden Forest. He'd skirted its edges in first year looking for moonstone deposits, found nothing in the clearings near the boundary, and turned back when the terrain grew dangerous. The manual had said lowland deposits rarely achieved ritual grade. But deeper in, where the old magic ran thick and the moonlight pooled in places humans hadn't walked in centuries, the conditions were different. The mountains were the primary formation sites, and the Scottish highlands pressed close to Hogwarts. The creatures that had kept him away, thornbacks, mountain trolls, whatever else lived in those depths, were still there. But he wasn't the same boy who'd turned back at the tree line.
He would find the moonstone himself. Whatever was waiting in the forest, he'd face it.